Man carries assault rifle to Obama protest — and it’s legal
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Video shows man with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder at Phoenix protest
Arizona law has nothing in the books regulating assault rifles
Secret Service: Man considered no threat to president, who was nearby
Man carrying rifle: “I think that people need to get out and do it more”

updated 1:15 a.m. EDT, Tue August 18, 2009
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PHOENIX, Arizona (CNN) — A man toting an assault rifle was among a dozen protesters carrying weapons while demonstrating outside President Obama’s speech to veterans on Monday, but no laws were broken. It was the second instance in recent days in which weapons have been seen near presidential events.

A man is shown legally carrying a rifle at a protest against President Obama on Monday in Phoenix, Arizona.

Video from the protest in Phoenix, Arizona, shows the man standing with other protesters, with the rifle slung over his right shoulder.
Phoenix police said authorities monitored about a dozen people carrying weapons while peacefully demonstrating.
“It was a group interested in exercising the right to bear arms,” police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said.
Arizona law has nothing in the books regulating assault rifles, and only requires permits for carrying concealed weapons. So despite the man’s proximity to the president, there were no charges or arrests to be made. Hill said officers explained the law to some people who were upset about the presence of weapons at the protest. Watch the rifle being legally carried at rally »
“I come from another state where ‘open carry’ is legal, but no one does it, so the police don’t really know about it and they harass people, arrest people falsely,” the man, who wasn’t identified, said in an interview aired by CNN affiliate KNVX. “I think that people need to get out and do it more so that they get kind of conditioned to it.”
Gun-toting protesters have demonstrated around the president before. Last week, a man protesting outside Obama’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire had a gun strapped to his thigh. That state also doesn’t require a license for open carry.
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U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan acknowledged the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona, but said he was not aware of any other recent events where protesters attended with open weapons. He said there was no indication that anyone had organized the incidents.
Asked whether the individuals carrying weapons jeopardized the safety of the president, Donovan said, “Of course not.”
The individuals would never have gotten in close proximity to the president, regardless of any state laws on openly carrying weapons, he said. A venue is considered a federal site when the Secret Service is protecting the president and weapons are not allowed on a federal site, he added.

In both instances, the men carrying weapons were outside the venues where Obama was speaking.
“We pay attention to this obviously … to someone with a firearm when they open carry even when they are within state law,” Donovan said. “We work with our law enforcement counterparts to make sure laws and regulations in their states are enforced.”
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CNN’s Carol Cratty contributed to this report.
All About Barack Obama • Gun Control • Arizona

If you think gun ownership is not under attack you are either kidding yourself or being intellectually dishonest. Before the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, people were thrown in prison for a decade for having a flat tire in the wrong state while carryig a gun. The Hughes Amendment bans an entire class of guns (machineguns) which, when legally owned, were knowingly used in crimes a grand total of 1 time since 1934. We just had a 5-4 Supreme Court decision stating that the 2nd Amendment applies to people, and not to the states for crying out loud!

How on earth can you think that people like me should not be fighting every day of their lives to protect and RESTORE lost firearms rights? These include at least:

- Repeal the Hughes Amendment
- Repeal the “Sporting Purpose” clause
- Incorporate the 2nd Amendment against the states
- Force local law enforcement to complete NFA weapons forms
- Repeal parts of the Brady Bill, including the lautenberg amendment

Most of these, including the now sunset “Assault Weapons Ban”, came since the late 60s. Based on the age of this country, our gun rights have been gutted at an alarming rate. Now do you blame us for acting like fanatics to protect gun rights?

But, if we’re gonna go to that whole “U.S. Constitution” place, I might just remind some folks that another of our Important Papers claims that I have a self-evident right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Loosely interpreted, I believe this means that I have the god-given RIGHT to feel safe in my own community. And like MANY Americans, being around a gun makes me really, really, REALLY uncomfortable. It makes me feel unsafe. Maybe because guns can kill people. Maybe because guns are designed to kill people. I think that fear and discomfort is a normal, healthy response to a gun, a “tool” (as our libertarian brethren so euphemistically call them) whose only purpose is to kill, coerce or threaten another creature. Am I crazy for feeling this way? I mean, seriously. I think I’m being pretty rational. The 2nd Amendment gives us the right to bear arms. It explicitly DOESN’T give us the right to do just WHATEVER we want with them. (That’s why it calls for a “well-regulated militia” instead of say, a “rag-tag gaggle of paranoid right-wing loonies wielding guns in crowded places”)

About two years ago, I was mugged at gunpoint in broad daylight, about a block from my own home. I have been on the wrong end of a gun before, and I know what it feels like. And you know what? It really f***ing sucks. NOBODY should have the right to make another person feel endangered, and that is EXACTLY what those men are doing by carrying their big guns around in “protest”, whether they care to admit to it or not.

I have just as much right to NOT own a gun as others do to own them, and I think that it’s reasonable to desire to live in a world where good neighbors are not made by sheer intimidation. And if that means that I must forfeit the supposed “right” to carry an automatic rifle into a large, vulnerable crowd of my fellow human beings, then so be it. For the sake of my own happiness, as well as that of those around me, that’s a compromise I’m more than willing to make.

I read through your remarks and like I said in the piece – it’s that I feel there was no need for the protest at this event like that – that it’s in slightly poor taste to show up to a presidential event armed (mainly due to our history with Presidential assassination and Civil Rights leader assassinations – and President Obama is not only a President but a Civil Rights figure). If it was a gun event, than maybe it would be less odd. It’s also coupled with the t-shirt and signage some of these folks were holding – signage with a revoutionary, armed revolutationary tinge.

The 2nd Amendment will not repealed. It would take a huge act of our government and the supreme court to do it – and it won’t happen. It’s just politics guys – as long as you think it might happen you’re more likely to vote for the individual who says they won’t let it happen – even if it is very unlikely.

Now regulation – that may happen on the local level and some on the federal – but that’s regulation not prohibition. Assault weapons for instance – why does anyone need assault weapons outside of a trained army? There has not been one moment in the last 100 plus years where anyone’s needed that kind of fire power in the private sector. We’re pretty safe folks. It’s not the frontier anymore – we have police. We have elected Sheriffs.

But no one can take away your guns. Our system is set up so it’s hard to change the constitution. It’s a good thing. And there are plenty of Democrats who feel like I do.

Open or concealed carry should not be the issue. The issue should be teaching our young the difference between right and wrong, and raising them to help others.

The way it happens now is one child shooting another because he won’t let him have/take/steal his new shoes, or killing because they “dis-respected” me.

It’s not the guns that are killing people, IT’S PEOPLE doing the killing. If it’s not a gun it’s a knife or a rock. It’s been that way since the dawn of time.

Only when WE THE PEOPLE start raising respectful children again will our nation again become the Land of the FREE and the Home of the BRAVE. Until this happens our legislators will continue to try to regulate us under deeper their thumbs, making us “Safer” from our selves.

My greatest concern is that WE THE PEOPLE will lose to the WE KNOW BETTER THAN YOU legislators. History is full of power struggles, you know what they say about absolute power don’t you?

Remember,
When SECONDS count, the Police are only MINUETS away.

(You can see the full majority opinion here. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf)

It seems to me that the militia argument is one that many advocates for gun control have used to make the point that gun rights are not unfettered. That is now passed. While gun rights indeed are lawfully limited, the supreme court has ruled that an individual does, alone, have the right to bear arms.

It seems to me that many people involved in this debate, are trying to live in denial of this ruling.

While a well written article, you are missing the underlying foundation for these men’s actions. The fact is Oboma, Pelosi and their cohorts DO want to take away our guns.

“2007 is the year we take over, and I won’t waste a minute getting rid of the guns in 2008 and beyond.” – Nancy Pelosi

“My first priority will be to reinstate the assault weapons ban as soon as I take office. Within 90 days, we will go back after kitchen table dealers, and work to end the gun show and internet sales loopholes. In the first year, I intend to work with Congress on a national no carry law, 1 gun a month purchase limits, and bans on all semi-automatic guns.” – Barack Obama

Luckily, like many of Obama’s promises, this will never come to fruition thanks to people like that gentleman carrying his assault rifle in your picture…

The right to bear arms is there to protect us as citizens against an unjust gov’t, right to protect ourselves at anytime anyplace. Is the gov’t unjust, doubt it. Does it have the potential to be unjust, sure. Can we be 100 sure that it will be always just and treat everyone with equality and not turn against it’s people? We don’t know that’s why we must preserve our rights.

Once a right is taken away it’s very hard to get it back with great costs.

So see the bigger picture not because of the now today is just fine and it’s not needed. Education is what is needed. Not laws that punish the law abiding citizen. Criminals don’t follow laws. It’s the law abiding citizens that do, and when there’s a law that prevents them from protecting themselves from those that break the law. Then yea people have issues with that. In all honestly if open carry was legal in Florida I’d practice that right everyday. Unfortunately my right is limited to having a conceal weapons purchase.

Now to the matter of the 1st amendment. You’re free to snap pictures in public places of whom ever whenever of events. I am sure there’s a few people that don’t want their picture taken at all, but since it’s your right to have taken those pictures in a public place you snap away, and its your personal discretion now to use them, or not have taken them. Should those people gather up and view their opinions and try to lobby for change for this freedom of press to exclude their pictures taken? No not really, they can speak their mind about it, but it shouldn’t be changed.

I know that might not be the greatest example but if feeling uncomfortable is a valid excuse to change a right. Anything can be justified into being changed.

Just remember that once that your rights are taken away, and your guns the gov’t has created a situation where it can take advantage of it’s people.

You should also write articles without any bias, you attempt to make these individuals out to be criminals that are about to explode any second. They are just ordinary law abiding citizens exercising their right to open carry.

I don’t think anyone would’ve shown up at a republican event open carrying because they know their rights are safe and are not in danger.. Where as democrats have a history in supporting the anti gun movement. So it’s no surprise if there’s more creative ways of protesting.

Ignorance of the law isn’t a excuse to break them, it shouldn’t also be a reason to harass or assume the worst of those that practice what they can.

I am not the best of writers, and I hope my views came across clear. Thanks for reading.